And MacGyver was a hippie who needed a haircut and a firearm. (Waaaah, I don't like guns!!) Hippie.

Gilligan's Island did have the professor...

Ignoring the "you're missing the social commentary" aspect, I present the following counter-evidence:

- Bones, CSI, NCIS, etc. focus a lot on the technology, albeit with a lot of creative liberties taken to make for good TV. However, fundamentally, the squints rule those series.
- Big Bang Theory - Sitcom with the protagonists being several scientists, an engineer and a down the hall neighbor.

Point of information - right or wrong, at the time it was written, "We the people" was wealthy landowners and business-owning white men. Women and unpropertied white men weren't counted.

(That said, I agree with your point - just because you're not an engineer doesn't mean you should be restricted from acting as a sovereign citizen and exercising control over your life.)

This. As an engineer who "got my feet wet" with a stint in local politics, because it was like dealing with a bunch of children. Everyone hated everyone else, it was full of petty rivalries and such. It does show that Diplomacy is actually quite accurate, but that doesn't mean that I wanted to do it for real.

Why? What (for example) precludes ARM desktops running Linux?

Depends on what you mean by rednecks. A lot of the folks up here (upstate NY) who proudly call themselves rednecks have quite a lot of mechanical knack - including understanding of mechanical forces, loads, etc., physics, chemistry.. After all, if you're going to build a dirt track race car out of an old Caddy, you need to make sure it will hold together in a wreck. Same with improvised explosives, homemade ammunition, etc. Are they all like this? No. However, many are, and the ones that are tend to be mechanics, machinists, and compulsive putterers and tinkerers.

Have a look at the DSG gearbox from VW/Audi/Porsche. It's essentially a double-clutched manual w/ an automatic shifting bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-Shift_Gearbox

I'm waiting for 10.04.1 and will likely standardize on that until next LTS.

Will save the bleeding edge for VMs.

The alternate install also fails to do Software RAID correctly.

While in installer, pre first boot: /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
(combined to /dev/md0, as /boot) /dev/sda2 /dev/sdb2
(combined to /dev/md1 as LVM)

After first boot (well, not even, because /boot doesn't mount) /dev/md0 is not started /dev/md1 is comprised of /dev/sda and /dev/sdb

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/+bug/563343